Recap

In the previous article, we used the Hide Spelling Errors option to hide all spelling (and grammar) mistakes. Although this method works, it is not perfect.

Here is the best way. Here we use Word Styles. If you don’t know what Word Styles are, you will not understand this article.
I recommend that you read this article Be stylish – Use Word Styles first.

Styles Recap

Word has lots of formatting options. Applying each formatting setting manually is time consuming. Therefore, many settings are put together and saved with a name. This collection of formatting settings is called a STYLE. There are many styles available – the important ones are shown in the Home Tab – Styles area.

Even if you have never used styles, any text you type automatically gets the NORMAL style.

Styles are of two types – those which apply to an entire paragraph, and those which apply to selected text only. Most styles are applied to paragraph. To apply a style, just CLICK inside a paragraph and use a style. DO NOT select the paragraph.

Our primary problem

Our problem is that some words will never be found in the standard dictionary. These include names, technical words, locations, abbreviations, mathematical formulas, chemical reactions, product names and so on.

Rather than hiding the spelling errors across the entire document – which is what we did in the previous article, it is much better to INFORM Word NOT TO DO SPELL CHECK for these specific words.

How is that done? Very simple. By adding a style with a very special formatting property.

How to prevent spelling check for selected text

Good question.

Type some text, make some spelling mistake. Let the red wavy line appear to indicate spelling error. Now select that text.

Look at the status bar. The current language is shown there. Click on it.

A dialog appears which has this brilliant option, Do not check spelling or grammar

That’s it. You got the answer.

But wait. Are you really going to manually select each false spelling mistake like your names, and technical words and apply this option one by one? That would be utterly inefficient.

Don’t worry. There is a better way.

Download Sample File and Follow

Open the file. In the first paragraph, you will see my name “Nitin” shown as spelling mistakes. If you do not see it as spelling mistake, replace it with another name which is not recognized by the dictionary.

Create a style which prevents Spell Check

Click inside any word in the paragraph which has NORMAL style applied.

In Home tab, open the Styles drop down and choose Create a Style option.

Give a name NoSpellChk and click the Modify button.

Now open the Formatting dropdown and choose Language…

Select the checkbox Do not check spelling or grammar

You want this style to be available for all new documents.
Therefore, choose the option New Documents based upon this template. Click Ok.

Using the style

Select the name which is shown as a spelling mistake. Double Click selects a word.

Now from the Styles list, choose NoSpellChk style. That’s it.

Now the spelling mistake does not appear because spelling check ignores that text.

Too lengthy? Yes. But it is a life-long benefit now!

Besides, you understood how to create custom styles. This is a very powerful skill to have.

What next? Let us use this knowledge further…

Of course, Word has given us so many styles, we should use them first. But there are common scenarios where you will NEED to create your own styles. In the next article we will cover one such common example – Creating Frequently Asked Questions type of documents.